Applications for the 2025 eQuality scholarships honoring students for their service to the LGBTQ+ community are now available.
Twelve $6,000 scholarships will be awarded to graduating high school students, community college transfer students, and medical students in northern and central California who have shown support and leadership in the LGBTQ+ community. Straight ally students as well as LGBTQ+ students are eligible.
Alameda has been well represented among previous scholarship winners. Eight Alameda students have been awarded eQuality Scholarships since 2017.
The volunteer-run eQuality Scholarship Collaborative has awarded more than $2 million since its inception in 1989.
The last two Alameda recipients
Stanford-bound 2023 Alameda High School graduate Paul Gontard [1] was awarded a $6,000 Lester Marks eQuality Scholarship in recognition of his service to the LGBTQ+ community during his high school years.
Gontard led the Alameda school district’s LGBTQ+ Roundtable and served as president of the high school’s Gender-Sexuality Alliance club. Alameda school board trustee Ryan LaLonde called Gontard “one of the most intelligent, thoughtful and organized students I have ever worked with who was always prepared for every meeting and three steps ahead of the adults in the room.”
[2]Alameda Community Learning Center graduate Jackie Campion was also awarded a $6,000 eQuality Scholarship in recognition of her service to the LGBTQ+ community during her high school years.
Campion, now a UC Berkeley student, was honored for co-founding the charter school’s Gender-Sexuality Alliance club and establishing a June pride festival for youth participants. The club’s advisor, Daniel Freeman, said Campion “wanted to ensure that there was a place where LGBT+ youth felt celebrated.” The June 2022 event was Alameda’s first public pride celebration.
The scholarship was sponsored by Alameda residents Eric Hsu and James Chambers. Hsu is the long-time chair of the volunteer-run eQuality Scholarship Committee.
More information about the application process is available on the eQuality website [3]. Applications must be submitted by January 31, 2025.